


Between flights at a sushi restaurant

by Winxhelina



Category: Cabin Pressure
Genre: Cabin Pressure Week, Gen, Sushi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-14
Updated: 2017-03-14
Packaged: 2018-10-05 07:24:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10300961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winxhelina/pseuds/Winxhelina
Summary: Done to the prompt "Minor characters" for Cabin Pressure week hosted by clairedrawsairdraws on Tumblr.Martin works for Swiss Air now, but he hasn't forgotten about his old friends. One day he meets a girl at a sushi restaurant in an airport





	

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so glad I managed to write a proper fic length oneshot that actually feels like a story. I had this idea a while ago, but I trashed it, because it had such focus on a minor character. Then I spent an hour trying to recall it for this prompt. Hope you enjoy.

Waiting in the airports was one of the most tedious parts of being a pilot, but it was a small price to pay for the best job in the world. Martin loved flying way too much to complain about a small wait, especially now when he was a pilot in Swiss Air and could afford sitting in the cafeteria. So that was what he was doing now, having sushi of all things. He wasn’t a fan, but he had caught sight of a sushi bar and thought of Douglas and had, in a fit of nostalgia, decided to have some in memory of his First Officer. He missed MJN Air and Douglas especially. Arthur called him every week and gave a very excited overview of everything that had happened in the world’s quaintest and most brilliant airdot. Martin cherished these calls and this way he had second-hand information about how Douglas was doing. He hardly spoke to Douglas through, because what was he supposed to say? Call him and ask how things were doing? They didn’t really do things like that. They didn’t text for no real reason either.

Martin sighed and looked around. The place was packed. There was a girl next to Martin, browsing articles on her iPad about which passenger airplanes were the safest to fly and which were deadliest.She seemed rather nervous.

“You have no reason to be worried. Only big airlines fly here, all of their planes are safe.”

The girl looked over Martin sceptically, clearly not appreciating him reading over her shoulder. The look she had on made Martin blush deeply in embarrassment. She was beautiful, but much younger than him and Martin wasn’t the type to go for girls half her ages. Or cheat for that matter.

“Yeah, but I can hardly Google “Most reliable pilots,”,” she sneered.

“Most pilots are reliable,” Martin smiled, pleased with his own little pun. She wasn’t.

“Most pilots are playboys who enjoy playing word games and Find the Lemon…”

“Travelling Lemon…” Martin mumbled

 “ _What?”_

 Martin was blushing again: “It’s called The travelling lemon.”

 “You would know. See, it only proves my point,” she countered.

“I didn’t even enjoy playing it!” Martin protested.

 “Bet you did. Don’t bother. My father was a pilot. I know how weird and reckless they can be.”

 “ _Weird?”_ Martin repeated, deeply offended by the suggestion. The plate of sushi the girl had ordered came to their table and Martin got to place his order at last. Hers looked delicious, an array of different colourful fishes and seafood. Tasting the food the girl next to Martin seemed to be experiencing some sort of divine pleasure, humming and tipping her head back. For a moment Martin thought he was forgotten, but she spoke again.

 “Yes. Weird. At least my father and all of his crew was. He got fired from Air England for smuggling so don’t give me that talk about pilots being responsible. The folk there was odd too, they invented all sorts of peculiar games and played them during the flight and the men there had the oddest interests. Forget collecting stamps – a couple of his buddies had collections of things they had nicked from airports around the world. They would _trade them._ Then, one guy, prided himself in taking a bottle of men’s aftershave from the little store cart every time before the flight, leaving it in a local metro or, if one wasn’t available, a bus or a tram, taking a photo and posting it online. He had _500 000 followers!_ Can you imagine? You travel the world every day and the thing you choose to photograph is an aftershave bottle.”

Martin shrugged: “That doesn’t make him a bad pilot in any way.” 

“That was nothing. When my father got sacked he started working for this little fishy airline. After a while they hired this pilot, a Captain who became his superior. Dad didn’t even tell mum that bit, but anyways - Then it turned out that the man wasn’t even paid anything! I mean, really, that’s bound to go against some laws and if he just wanted to fly so bad that he was willing to do it for free, how are we to say he is competent?”

Martin wanted to say something at this point, but she was on a roll, not even pausing to breathe: “No, wait - and I know he wasn’t competent. There were plenty of examples. They once told the Tower they smelt smoke in the flight deck, because there was _a cat in the hold about to freeze to death!”_

“Hey! What was I supposed to do? Let the cat die!?”

 This caught the girl’s attention and she was left staring at Martin, her lips slightly parted, silent.

Martin was left blushing, staring at the table where his sushi had appeared some moments earlier by the waiter they hadn’t even noticed. He tried one of the sushi rolls. It was incredibly good indeed. He should really have sushi more often. Martin was the one to break the silence: “So… you’re Douglas’s daughter. I thought you would be younger…”

“A lot of time has passed since the birthday you tried to kill my friends with a chocolate bomb on my birthday, but I’m still only 16. I look older.”

Martin smiled at the memory, fond: “Yeah…Sorry about that.”

She shrugged: “It’s the thought that counts, right? You’re Captain Martin Crieff.”

“Just First Officer now, but yeah…”

They ate their food in a bit of an awkward silence until Martin announced he had to go and get ready for his flight to Zurich.

 “Not the 18:25 one,” Douglas’s daughter enquired, horrified.

“I’m afraid so. Don’t worry. I’ll make sure to land it extra smooth and be very responsible,” Martin assured warmly, but the girl didn’t seem all that convinced. Martin still felt a bit awkward as they parted, but at least now he had something to text to Douglas.

 

_Hey. I just met your daughter. I’m flying her to Zurich. What’s she’s doing there?_


End file.
